While not so limited, the device of the present invention will be described in its application to preparation of a suit coat front and a suit coat back to be sewn together along the shoulder seam. This particular application has been chosen because it is complex and difficult, and demonstrates the full gamut of operations of which the device is capable. The device of the present invention is capable of performing simpler seam preparation operations as will be described hereinafter.
The shoulder seam between a suit coat front and back is particularly difficult to prepare for sewing for two basic reasons. First of all, the edge of the coat back at the shoulder seam is slightly longer than the edge of the coat front. Secondly, the coat back shoulder seam edge is slightly concave, while the coat front shoulder seam edge is slightly convex. In most instances, prior art workers sewed a shoulder seam on an appropriate sewing machine while at the same time condensing the coat back edge and aligning the convex and concave edges manually without the production of ripples, bulges and the like. It will be immediately appreciated that such a sewing operation required a highly skilled person and was extremely difficult and time consuming to perform.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,667,859 in the name of the same inventor teaches a device for condensing an area of fabric, utilizing a large number of condensing needles. In this instance, however, an elongated narrow strip of the material, (i.e., the edge) is to be condensed and requires a different mechanism for this purpose.
Through the use of the device of the present invention, the preparation of the shoulder seam is very much easier, very much quicker, and far more precise. A highly skilled person is not required to operate the device. The device of the present invention may be manually controlled, or computer controlled, as desired.